School

I am teaching in a private school that is pretty typical for Bangkok. Grades P-6 on 2 campuses across the alley from each other. There is the typical mix of new and veteran teachers, a male director and female administrator.

English is started in grade 1, with a "native speaker" 1 hour a week, so we are busy all day and and a central part of the program. Imagine if we offered Chinese or Spanish that way! Teaching is primarily the typical Asian model of lecture and rote repetition without meaning, but there is an effort to be more experiential and conversational at the upper levels. Missing are the typical ways of teaching rhyming words like say, day, way, but perhaps that requires conversation ability that our kids have when they begin to read.

There is a Thai alphabet song but it takes about 7 minutes to sing! If you are washing hands to it you will be really clean.

Everything in Thailand is very clean, partly because the rain keeps it washed and because the Thai are personally very clean people. So the children's uniforms are spotless but wrinkle proof and shoes come off before entering any room.

Bathrooms, sidewalks, public areas are clean and people of all ages are modestly dressed in Western clothes. In Bangkok, there are 10M people but relatively little shoving or bumping. They tend to be small so lots of us can get into one train. But the taller volunteers do feel a bit Gulliver!

Temple Visit

I am having to go back and recapture stuff that just came so thick and fast I could not get it blogged.

Last week we went to a Temple and were honored to meet the director monk. He was educated in America and was the most gracious and sincere man I have ever met.

He gave us the basics of Buddism, but the fascinating part was how Buddism has changed in Southern Asia as opposed to Northern Asia. Case in point is the absence of women in the monestaries.

Buddha originally taught that man and women were no different in ability to follow the path and join monestaries. Various (male) cultural issues arose even before the Buddah had died, but they laste after he did. Centuries past and with the influence of the west, women began to apply. The North being more progressive agreed to set up separate monestaries and ordain women. The South being more "by the book" will not ordain and does not welcome women monks should want to establish femal monestaries. So it goes.

Whatever the training is, I have heard no loud argements or honking horns!

It's a jungle!

The weather is beyond the hot and humid of the tropics because of all the greenery that is growing in every possible space that is not concrete. And in some cement it is breaking through. The  house yards are not  tidy grass space, but crammed with voluntary lush plants with huge leaves and gorgeous flowers. The earth steams after a rain and the green holds the moisture until The air can try to absorb it. As dry as Morocco was, I found the water it needs. About 50 years without human interference would be all Bangkok needs for the dense jungle to reclaim it..

Redefines humidity as we know it in Chicago!
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English Camp and Cultural Event

Today the whole CCS volunteers staff when to my school for an all school English Camp. We each had an assigned topic and detailed instructions from the local teachers, but 8 groups of 40 kids per group!









I did storytelling for grades 4-6 which meant a lot of time with The Boy Who Cried Wolf. By time #7 I was not sure if the wolf would show up or not. It would be faster if the villagers just chased him off or got smarter sheep. But the kids had a great time and all the teachers were grateful.






Then we had a cultural experience. The planned event was a visit to Jim Thompson house who was a private American who took 6 regular Thai houses, moved them all to his property and designed one house in the Thai style from them.  He also collected some astonishing Chinese and Thai art which was wonderfully displayed. The house made the most of the wonderful garden. In th way it reminded me of Frank Lloyd Wright with the windows and vistas bringing nature in. Except here there is no need for windows!

The unplanned part was the taffic and rain. The 40 minute tour took 1.5 hours to get to and 2 more to get home. We ended up taking a van, sky train, subway, tuktuk, golf cart and splashing through puddles.

 

Weekend in the South Pacific

Off the grid for the weekend - plenty to say on Monday.

Where is the cab going?

There are 3 kinds of roads in Bangkok: overpass, Main Street and alley.

The toll overpass is very fast and also avoided at all costs. Also large stretches are Under Construction. But it shows up on the map as a wonderful blue road. Just don't tell the cabbie to take it for speed - it only looks good on paper.

Main streets have business on the first floor - "business" is primarily a storage unit stall filled with cloth, tires, doors, or snacks and stuff. Interspersed every mile or so are 7/11 or Big C or another glassed in front store. Or a car dealer.

The alleys - literally 1 car wide but not 1 way, paved but no walk way - has food stalls under a tent or awning in front of the stall. These are usually fresh fruit or vegetables. Meat seems to be only sold in the larger market areas. There are also carts and stalls with prepared food. The teacher said a typical dinner for with three dishes if 20 baht, about 65 cents so many many people just buy off the street on the way home. It is almost cheaper than buying fresh and cooking.

Also in these little alleys are residents, in a separate part section. Driving in one of these, you find not only the "1 lane 2 cars", but parked cars! The rest is all walls and gates. Except for the traffic it is all safe to walk. Watership Down rabbit warrens come to mind so we all carry cards with the address and cab fare to take us the 2 blocks were are away from the house but lost.

I am sure there is a downtown Bangkok of lavish malls and glitter but this is real life where people work hard and make ends meet.

 

Bedlam to Bliss

We started teaching today. I have English class for elementary. Today I saw all Grade 2. They are the cutest little kids! This is a private school so they have teeny little uniforms and all the dark hair in pigtails or braids or bowl cut. We did Hokey Pokey and Head Shoulders Knees and Toes -  thanks to the Glen Ellyn Public Library who kept me fresn on those songs! Then we worked with the  grade 1 kids preparing to sing at the Englihsh Language Camp on Monday. A stirring rendition of Eency Weency Spider. Any real spider would run away from all the noise but the "down came the rain" is a real gully washer when they all screech it out.

Or cultural activity today was to learn Thai massage, pressure points, etc. and then since we were there anyway, we all had one! Absolutely tranquil - lie on a covered bamboo mat with soft music. The massage person gets on the mat with you rather than standing beside so real pressure come from the arms and hand. I swear there was one she got both feet involved, too. It was lovely. Everyone here is so gracious and hospitable it is easy to feel like a princess. Ahhhhh.

Thais drink coffee so there is a pot going all the time. That is just one exa

mple of the conglomeration of cultures and traditions that Thailand embraces with enthsiasium. Plus their desire to always make the other person welcome and happy.